


Apples (And The Women Who Eat Them)

by RoyaltyOverReality



Category: Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena
Genre: Angst, Black Rose Arc, F/M, Literary References & Allusions, Ohtori Akio Is His Own Warning, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:33:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27309973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoyaltyOverReality/pseuds/RoyaltyOverReality
Summary: This is the story of how Kanae Ohtori got the sword that she used to duel against Utena, told from Akio's point of view. Written for the 2020 Black Rose Zine.
Relationships: Ohtori Akio/Ohtori Kanae
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Apples (And The Women Who Eat Them)

_ Women _

_ fall at your feet _

_ like Evening Snow sleeping _

_ Tell me, did she wish to wake or _

_ slumber _

_ Paris  _

_ Prince of Serpents _

_ golden apple in hand _

_ The world is yours for the tasting _

_ bitter _

“Kanae, you don’t look like yourself,” I said.

“I don’t look like myself?” Her voice was empty and lifeless. “I feel more like my true self than I ever have before, Akio.”

I didn’t need to turn around to know that Kanae was standing in the doorway, glaring at me. She was in a trance, but it was different than her usual facile complacency. If I hadn’t already known the reason behind it, I might have found this change in her demeanor intriguing. However, I was well aware that she had given herself over to the black rose seminar earlier that day. Then again, even if I had been completely unaware of the context, it probably still wouldn’t have been enough to pique my interest.

I sat waiting on the couch, holding a large yellow apple as if it were the skull of Yorick. The planetarium projector was on, to give her the impression that I had been stargazing before she arrived. I did not invite Kanae in. While she was under the power of the black rose, her desires would be amplified to the utmost extreme. It would be a mistake to satiate her hunger for my attention now when that was the very thing that was driving her.

For a moment, she waited in the doorway for me to take notice of her. Even stripped of all her pretenses, Kanae still wanted to play the role of the poor, neglected fiancée. I doubted that she was waiting for my permission to enter. She had recently developed a nasty habit of showing up uninvited and inserting herself into my life. Instead, she was now playing a waiting game with me in the hopes that I would break first. Little did she know that I could wait centuries longer than she could if I had to.

Eventually, she must have realized I wasn’t going to break because she stepped into my office. She stood before me with a blank expression on her face. It pleased me more than the vacant smile she typically wore. The darkness held captive between her pursed lips was that of a pinot noir, in contrast with the lightness of her usual chardonnay smile. Bitterness leaves a much more lasting impression than buttery sweetness, don’t you think?

Of course, you do, but let’s not get lost in that metaphor. If all that you wanted from me was beautiful imagery, I would tell you how a comet vaporizes when it passes near the sun. But that’s not what you came to me for, is it? Regardless of what you may want from me now, you came to me for a story.

So why don’t we get back to that original image? The apple. I held it directly in Kanae’s line of vision. While you, dear reader, may have noticed its significance from the moment I mentioned it, my lovely fiancée had no reason to take notice of the apple just yet.

I made a show out of gazing longingly at it as if it was something to be admired, not consumed. It would be rotten in less than a month. The sight of the stars reflected in my eyes was going to make her forget that.

“The golden delicious apple is a large, sweet apple that typically ranges in color from yellow to spring green. It’s more delicate than other apples, so it needs to be stored carefully in order to prevent bruising,” I stated. “It closely resembles the golden apple Paris bestowed upon Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, in exchange for a woman called Helen of Troy. The goddesses Hera and Athena had offered him political power and knowledge of war, respectively, in exchange for this apple of discord, yet he turned them both down.”

“I don’t want to hear your empty words,” Kanae interrupted. “Not anymore.”

“Then what is it that you really want?” I asked, holding the golden apple in my hand out to her. 

She took it, but instead of taking a bite, she dropped it onto the ground. I was somewhat insulted by her outright rejection of my framing device, but it wouldn’t take much effort to nudge her back into the proper narrative. She had always been tediously easy to manipulate. Her recent change in temperament had little effect on that. 

“Your disinterest is understandable,” I said. “Presumably, you’re familiar with what happens to women who eat apples.”

Kanae didn’t respond. 

“When Eve was tempted by the serpent to share the forbidden fruit with Adam, they were burdened with knowledge and cast out of Eden. When Snow White took the apple from the wicked queen in disguise, she fell into a deep sleep until she received her true love’s first kiss,” I said. “Tell me, Kanae, which one of those things scares you? Are you afraid to fall asleep? Or to open your eyes?”

Kanae didn’t answer. She took a step closer to me and grabbed my tie. She yanked on it hard, and I slowly rose to my feet. It would have been easy to resist her and stay sitting down. However, I couldn’t see a reason to deny her the chance to play the dominant role in this performance. This was such a break from her usual behavior that I decided it would serve me well to become the perfect scene partner. Once I was on my feet, there was little space between the two of us. Kanae leaned in for a kiss, but then she pulled back.

My eyes darted from her lips to her eyes, more concerned with reading her expression than anything else. She still wore the same corpselike expression as before. The fact that she hadn’t kissed me had enticed me more than any kiss from her possibly could have. I had expected this to be a simple procedure. She walks in, I talk, we kiss, the sword pull takes place, and then she leaves to duel. This break from the script was beginning to make me think that there might have been some sort of hidden potential in her that Anthy and I hadn’t noticed until now.

As Kanae looked down at my chest, I noticed that her eyes had gotten lost in the shadows beneath my collar. She was starting to figure out the true nature of the game that my sister and I had turned her into a pawn for. She was no longer fantasizing about the clanging of wedding bells. Now, a different sort of bell was ringing in her head.

From the way that she was staring at my chest, I knew exactly what she wanted from me. Slowly I started to unbutton my shirt. Her eyes followed my hands, but I could see her instinctually bringing her hand up towards my chest. Was she even conscious of it? Was she conscious of anything right now? I found something appealing to me about the sight of an empty shell of a woman reaching out for something she’d never be able to hold onto. It was perhaps, the first time in her life that I had ever been genuinely attracted to her. 

Kanae placed her delicate hand on my chest. Her fingertips were trembling with nervous excitement. We had been very close together before, but I had never allowed her to feel that there was any sort of intimacy between us, not even the illusion of the thing. This, perhaps, passed as intimacy to her now. Or maybe she was simply aware that it was the closest she’d ever get to the feeling.

She stood with her hand on my chest for what must have felt like a lifetime to her. It was a silent cascade of desperate pleas for power met with catastrophic silence. She had torn herself to bits in search of validation, only to realize she was looking for her reflection in a mirror that had been painted black. She was a blood-soaked conqueror declaring her dominion over an empty city.

“This...this can’t be,” Kanae said. “The man in the elevator told me...he said the path I had to take had already been laid out for me.”

“It was.”

I wrapped my arms around her like we were slow dancing and dipped her low. Then, I placed my hand over her heart.

“Your path leads to the end of the world.”

“The end…?” 

Her words morphed into a sharp cry of pain as the black hilt of a sword burst out of her chest. Once I was sure that she could stand up on her own, I left her standing in the middle of the room. I picked up the golden apple on the floor, to prevent her from tripping on it if she took a step back. Then, I sat down on the couch, dusted the apple off on my sleeve, and took a bite out of it. It was probably best for me to wait around to make sure that Kanae was able to pull the sword out of her chest on her own. 

If she proved to be even less competent than I had assumed, I would give her some guidance, or even pull it out myself. But I had a theory that she would be a stronger duelist if she was able to get the sword out on her own. I wasn’t worried about her turning the sword against me if she managed to get it. She had rejected my choice: knowledge or sleep. She was going to keep living in the dream world that I had crafted for her until the day that I finally brought it to an end.


End file.
